MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!

Hey all , just a quick note to wish you all a great New Year as well as a belated Christmas.
may 2007 bring all the happiness in the world!!!
all the best Nirish & Jheneeta & of course NYESHKA
XXXX

T'was the season to be jolly....

X-mas in Paradise...
I was talking to an old friend [he in London] recently comparing what we had planned for Christmas and New Year..
And it got me thinking about the different the Xmas/N-year experiences between UK and Mauritius.
In U.K Christmas's tended to be more of a family thing , with everyone opening presents together early in the morning , followed by the obligatory tantrums ....
This would be normally followed by a VERY large Christmas Lunch with various close aunts cousins, uncles-throw in loads of those paper crowns and dry jokes that come out of Tesco crackers...:)- you get the idea?
You would eat all the Turkey you possibly could , compare presents with your cousins who almost always had better ...... and then of course, T.V!!!!
(Man!!!) Christmas was perhaps one of the few times that we as a family would watch T.V together...
Only Fools and Horses Omnibuses, Black adder Christmas specials, Friends specials, .... ET AL.
In comparison Christmas here does tend to be much more hectic as far as shopping for presents is concerned (buying presents for this aunt, that cousin third removed etc...) but a lot more quiet on the events side... One does tend to get invited to the family lunch but instead of turkey its the local delicacies that tend to get served... all good.But there isn't the 'over eating ' /drinking ( unfortunately) - a laid back affair.
Now all of this has started me thinking about New Year this year.What we gonna do!!!!There are choices (I have to be careful; here as some of the people mentioned read this blog:)

1) go to a relatively dull get together at which there will undeniably be loads of alcohol ( not all bad then)

2)Nice formal Family do , very elegant and laid back loads of kids so less looking after the little one. A little drinking, no overdoing it . wake up the next day regretting that i didn't get totally mashed( this is not an option as i will drive ).

3)Sod everyone , get a BBQ set, Bottle of champagne, and go to the beach and chill and picnic our way to 2007.

ooh decisions decisions....

OOF!!!!!

Oh My GOSH!!!
well its certainly been a few months since i managed to sit down and update this blog... and i sincerely appologise to all of you who were waiting ( Tango in Wales, Joshan in Ukrain( sorry Belarus) etc as well as the Couze Fc Group, some of whom we met last night at Avi's -Cheers Avi).
But i finaly got round to doing it ...
In the last 3 months since my last update... Jen had her finals, started a new job... Ny started School on the 'otherside' of the island , and I finally got the promotion i'd been working for.
its all good stuff so im not complaining but it does leave me with very little free time.
Aside from that Ny is growing up so fast .. she's talks and comunicates with great confidence . and due to her mixed parentage , -speaks a mixute of English, French and Creole.
sometimes the the words get mixed up and instead of saying 'apple'( for instance) she'll say "appomme"... which her parrents think is toooo cute and start hugging her till she starts to get irrate.
ok to the nitty gritty some good pics for you , from home , Shanes Birthday at P.Aux Piment, some wicked Ilse Aux Cerf pics when i went fishing for my birthday, and loads loads more...
so just click the PIC LINK and off you go.
Enjoy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NYESHKA

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NYESHKAAAAA.....
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUUU.....
Hi all as some of you are aware it was Ny's 2nd birthday on the 1st of April.
we had originally planned to hold a Teletubbies themed children's party on that date.(Dont worry no way you were gonna get to see the pics of me in a Po costume).
But due to it being a long bank holiday weekend it was impossible to find a decent bungalow by the beach which had not already been booked for that weekend.
But don't worry; given that it will be Jen's birthday midway through the month, and MINE ON THE 30th OF APRIL (HINT HINT!!!!!!!), we probaly will have a party, at some point.
Anyhow, my cousin Ajeeve calle me on the preceding Wednesday and asked us if we wanted to check out a relatively new hotel on the south of the island.
and that was it .... The weekend planned!!!!
The 'Le Voile D'or', is a 5 star hotel situated on the very southern tip on the island, and as we normally stay in the north; this was a BIG change.
The countryside around the south is a lot less refined than the tourist friendly north of the island, with loads of luscious (damn I never thought I'd ever use that word) greenery, mountains and palm trees.
The beaches aren't as clinically perfect as the north but they are not the primary focus.
Instead, as you look out of the window from your twin jacuzzi you get a wonderful view of mountains and vast sugar cane Fields.
The hotel itself had just changed hands from some French group to that of Movenpicke group(didn't they have a Swiss Center in leiscester Square I know that I used to go to eat there relatively often but I cant remember with whom????). :)
The fallout from such a change tends to be poor service and a drop in culinary standards.
Though it did feel that there were very little staff , we didn't feel that this was a fault . In fact at this level the staff tend to be in the background, and only appear in needed.
as we arrived , somebody took my car keys and offered to parked my car...
of course he may have just finished his shift for the weekend and took my car for a weekend joyride.... But I didn't care as it was the first time anyone has ever parked my car for me so I was well impressed.
aside from that the food was good not brilliant but good.
The facilities on the other hand were truly excellent. We spent almost whole days in the swimming pool.
the spa is one of the finest on the island and that is saying something as it competes with the likes of 'The One And Only Touresrock' as well as 'The St Geran'.
Anyhow the bottom line is Yes I would recommend it to my friends and family.
Of course I took LOADS of pictures, including of a little cut cake party we had for Ny in lieu of a proper party.
as usual just click the PICLINK and off you go.

Mixed Pics

PIC LINK

2006

Hi Everyone and a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
As usual I begin with excuses for not updating for so long.
New year was a little stressful . And due to some reasons that I can't go into here, we were not really able to partyyyyy like its 1999.
and of course as a result there are only a few pictures. So what I have done is include other pictures like the work X-mas party (always worth a laugh),and stuff....
Anyhow... Things are back in order now and we plan to party enough to make up for what was missed out.
so Friends,Cousins aunts,internet blog browsers... I bid you a wonderful [belated] happy new year.
As usual click the PICLINK and off you go..